Software-defined networking to shine forth from Solaris 11.2

Big O will bake the software into Solaris 11.2 just as soon as it can and says doing so will mean its customers can “use a common and open SDN platform with OpenStack to manage Oracle Solaris-based clouds.”

Oracle joining OpenDaylight is both predictable and significant. It's predictable because, having thrown in its lot with OpenStack, it makes sense for the company to go all in by also joining OpenDaylight. It's significant because any time an organisation the size of Oracle joins an effort like OpenDaylight it's a positive endorsement of the standard.

It's also significant because it shows greater commitment to SDN from Oracle. As the company says in its spiel about the decision, including OpenDaylight will mean Solaris can control and use resources using the standard.

One more interesting nugget: Oracle says it will “... enable compatibility with OpenStack Neutron and OpenDaylight SDN to allow customers to deploy applications in highly available, secure and flexible Oracle Solaris virtual machine instances.” That looks a nice little value-add to Solaris that, on top of Big O's other recent releases, makes Oracle look more and more like it is happy to cook up and run just about any kind of cloud.

It's worth noting, however, that Oracle hasn't gone all-in with OpenDaylight, as it has signed up for the lowest, Silver, level of membership. ®